


this is what love is | komoshou

by floresste



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Drabble, Implied Sexual Content, Implied abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floresste/pseuds/floresste
Summary: from ages six to twenty-seven, daishou suguru and komori motoya try desperately to figure out what love really is, and if they deserve it at all.
Relationships: Daishou Suguru/Komori Motoya
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	this is what love is | komoshou

**Author's Note:**

> pls read the tags before you proceed ^^

daishou suguru, age six, knows what love is.

love is the way his mom looks at his dad when he hands her the dinner plate at night. love is the way his mother tucks him into bed. love is the way his dad buys him his first volleyball.

he also learns that love is the way his father screams at him when he doesn’t listen. he learns love is the way that his dad gets so angry he throws things, and his mom gets so angry she throws things back. 

daishou suguru learns about love in his bedroom, with pillows clutched over his ears to drown out the yells in the kitchen below.

komori motoya, age six, knows what love is.

love is the way his mom comes home from her second job at one in the morning, the dark bags under her eye glowing in the light of the television komori sits in front of, when she picks him up and tucks him into his bed. love is the way his mom always makes sure he has eaten his fill before she eats what is left over. love is the way his mom makes sure he doesn’t look poor, because she doesn’t want the other kids to make fun of him.

he learns that love isn’t always true. that sometimes the men you thought you knew leave you and your young son to fend for themselves. but he learns that what makes people strong is using that fake love to love those around you even harder. 

komori motoya learns about love leaning over the stove, trying desperately not to burn the pasta he boils at eleven at night, trying to cook his mom a meal for her birthday.

daishou suguru, age thirteen, reinvents love for himself. 

his mom does not love his dad. his dad does not love his mom. neither seem to love him enough to spare him from the their own lack of love, so he finds his own.

he finds this love pushed up against a locker, kissing the only other gay boy he knows, who is three years older than him but more than willing to give daishou what he wants. he finds this love in the boy’s hands under his shirt, as he kisses up his neck and whispers not to tell anyone, to never tell anyone what they do.

daishou suguru reinvents love in the bathroom of his home, perched on the sink as he covers the bright purple marks on his neck with his mother’s concealer.

komori motoya, age thirteen, reinvents love for himself.

the only love komori has ever known is the love his mom gave him. he never knew his father, and he never wanted to. all he ever needed was his mom. 

but komori has to find a new love when he’s face to face with sakusa kiyoomi, his cousin on his mother’s side. he’s difficult to get along with, and komori doesn’t know if he can find a love for this boy within him. his mom tells him he can, because that love is in everyone.

komori finds this love in late nights at the community gym, practicing volleyball with sakusa, who has a hell of a spin on his spike. he learns, he grows, and he laughs with his cousin and his new friend as they practice and practice and practice until their palms and forearms burn.

komori motoya reinvents love on the volleyball court, celebrating sakusa’s successful spike with a double high five and a hug that sakusa did not consent to, and will never admit to enjoying.

daishou suguru, age seventeen, gives up on love.

mika yamaka was the only person who understood him. the only one who could see past the snake skin smoke screen he put up and see the real him, who was a scared teenage boy who had never been truly loved by those around him, who only wanted a love that was pure and soft and real.

mika looked at that scared boy and held him, promised him she loved him, and then she broke up with him and left him more broken than when she’d found him. she says that his only love is volleyball, and she’s probably right. volleyball is the only thing in his life that loves him back.

daishou suguru gives up on love in the nohebi academy gymnasium as he hits serve after serve, focusing on the burn in his hands and not the one in his eyes, and he promises himself that he will never love again.

komori motoya, age seventeen, gives up on love.

his mother passes away after a long battle with lung cancer. there was nothing komori could have done, but he feels responsible anyway. sakusa is a realist and tells him that if his mom hadn’t smoked so much, she never would have died. but komori knows that’s unfair. she worked two jobs. she had a hyperactive, difficult son she could barely handle. she was stressed and she relieved her stress in the only way she knew how.

komori is taken in by sakusa’s mother and father, and he likes it. he likes them. his aunt and uncle have never been anything but kind to him. it’s fun to pretend they’re one big family, and komori has always had a place with them. but it’s not the same. it will never be the same.

komori motoya gives up on love as he watches them lower his mother’s casket to the ground, and he watches the one love he knew he could always count on get buried six feet below.

daishou suguru, age twenty-three, reencounters love.

the meeting is a complete coincidence. they bump into each other at a big party for all the professional volleyball players in japan. they’re heading in opposite directions, and they bump arms as they pass each other, and daishou’s cup crashes to the ground.

the other man apologized profusely, and daishou’s reassurances die on his lips as he looks up. he recognizes the itachiyama libero, because even with so many years behind them, he could never forget those fierce eyes.

komori motoya introduces himself. daishou tells him he already knows who he is. komori laughs and tells him that he already knows who he is, daishou suguru, nohebi academy alumni, wing spiker, and division two volleyball player. they exchange a few more words, merely pleasantries, before komori has to go rescue his cousin sakusa from some particularly nasty paparazzi. they part ways and don’t see each other again for the rest of the night.

daishou suguru reencounters love in the middle of the night, when he wakes up with the memory of a laugh and a toothy grin and finds he can’t get a certain libero out of his mind.

komori motoya, age twenty-three, reencounters love.

he sits on the couch of daishou suguru, who he’s known for over a year now, and he pours his heart out. he tells him about his single mother who worked so hard to give him the life he deserves and how she left him too early. he tells daishou about the instability of love and how he’s so afraid of loving only to lose it again.

daishou suguru listens and nods like he understands in a way no one else has before. he doesn’t tell komori that everything will be okay. he doesn’t tell him that he’s brave. he just listens and absorbs.

and when komori is finished, and sucks in a deep breath and wipes the tears he didn’t even know were on his face, daishou scoots closer. he whispers that he understands, and he knows komori’s fear, but he shouldn’t be afraid to try love again. that daishou himself is terrified, and he doesn’t even know what love is, because maybe he lost it long ago but he’d like to find it again, and he’d like to find it with komori.

komori motoya reencounters love on a shabby couch in a too-expensive apartment as daishou’s mouth reaches for his, and he knows this isn’t love but he thinks that if he tries, it could be.

daishou suguru, age twenty-seven, finally finds love again.

he spent his whole life searching in the wrong places. maybe it wasn’t were it was supposed to be. maybe it wasn’t in his parents or the boy who used him when he was young and vulnerable and it wasn’t in the girlfriend he’d hoped to find it in, but he finally finds it.

he finds it in stuttered giggles as hands tickle their way up a tanned belly, spotted with moles and freckles. he finds it in hands curling around his waist as he comes home from practice late. he finds it in himself as he hovers above his boyfriend, mouths inches apart, to stick his tongue out at him just to hear him giggle. 

daishou suguru finally finds love again in a shared apartment with komori motoya, with cheeks pressed against cheeks and bodies curled together on a plush sofa they picked out together, and he thinks _this is what love is._

komori motoya, age twenty-seven, finally finds love again.

he finds it in scavenger hunts to places that mean something to him. it leads him to the house he grew up in with his mother, and the house he lived in with his cousin, and the gym they practiced in. it leads to the place he met his boyfriend and the izakaya they had their first date at and the park in which they first said those terrifying, earth-shattering words.

he finds it in his boyfriend, waiting for him in their apartment, because of course he would be waiting at where they were in the present, so far from their past selves, kneeling before him on one knee with a ring in his hand.

komori motoya finally finds love again in daishou suguru, the one person who understands him better than anyone in the whole world, who asks him to marry him in his own dorky way, and as komori cries and kisses him and whispers yes over and over, he thinks _this is what love is._

**Author's Note:**

> the brainrot.......hello komoshou nation


End file.
